Cote d’Ivoire News | Gay Men

Six gay men featured in U.S. embassy photo attacked in Cote d’Ivoire

After holding an event in Abidjan in solidarity with the victims of the mass shooting in an Orlando gay club and posted a picture, the U.S. embassy posted a photo featuring members of a local LGBTI advocacy group to its website.

Days later, two of the men were physically attacked and the others harassed in separate incidents as the photo was circulated through digital channels.

While private same-sex relations have never been criminalized in Cote d’Ivoire, public visibility has subjected many LGBTI Ivorians to harassment and violence.

Outlas Outreach

The Ongoing Insecurity of LGBT Ghanaians

A relatively stable constitutional democracy, Ghana has seen the beginnings of official outreach to its LGBT citizens in recent years as it has signed on to pro-LGBT international accords and treaties, but new research from Human Rights Watch (HRW) reveals ongoing persecution and gender-based vulnerabilities. Though rarely enforced, a law criminalizing same-sex relations that emerged from the country’s colonial legacy has led to the political and corporal endangerment of LGBT Ghanaians, exposing them to intimidation, violence, fears of public exposure, and little to no recourse to law enforcement protection. Lesbians, bisexual women, and trans men have faced especially high levels of violence and labor precarity, and anti–domestic violence laws have done little to protect them given the lack of trust in the legal system. In response, HRW conducted interviews with LGBT Ghanaians to track insecurity across a range of social, legal, and economic domains and issued a set of recommendations to improve protections for the community.